A Day in Sydney (or, "The Climb of Our Lives")

We returned to civilization via VirginAustralia arriving on Thursday evening in beautiful Sydney.  With the train line running through the airport, the trip to our hotel was a breeze -- train downtown to harbor, and then a ferry across the water and a short walk up the hill, all with views.  Friday morning we got even better views.  After walking across the famous Sydney Harbor Bridge, we climbed to the top of it!  For the bridge climb, we donned coveralls with little leashes to keep our sunglasses, gloves, hats, and handkerchiefs attached, stashed everything in lockers, and strapped on harnesses.  The Sydney Harbor Bridge is the biggest single-span steel arch bridge in the world (still the widest and heaviest, although no longer the longest), and the summit is more than 440 feet above the water.  We weren't allowed to take our own camera, and we didn't purchase any of the pictures they took of us, but we took pictures of other climbers later to share the general idea of what we did.  In the picture on the bottom left, which shows the summit of the bridge, between the two flags, you can see a group of people.  The tour does include a short video clip, though, which I've included here. We climbed 1332 steps and covered almost a mile as we learned about bridge architecture (one of Miriam's current interests) and the history and some trivia about the building of the bridge.  The picture in the middle, with the sunset, shows a person climbing down one of the sets of ladders we used to get to the top.  In the afternoon we admired the Opera House and wandered through the botanical gardens before ending our exciting day with some gelato and a walk back across the bridge and home to the hotel.